“A man, if he is a real man, if he wants to message someone or hit him, he does so without resorting to the services of an intermediary,” the President of Ukraine said in an interview.
In an interview with French television, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy challenged Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to a “duel” in the ring “if he’s a man”.
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“A man, if he is a real man, if he wants to text someone or hit someone, he does so without resorting to the services of an intermediary. If I could send such a message to Putin, I would do it alone,” Zelensky said in an interview broadcast by French public television LCI and quoted by Europa Press.
The Ukrainian leader said he was ready to fight on two sides with Putin in a fight that “starts tomorrow”, adding that this meeting “would be President Putin’s last summit”.
Zelenskyy was reacting to the news of Putin’s order to the President of the Russian region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, to kill the Ukrainian head of state shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
The Ukrainian president also raised the possibility of an end to the war with Putin’s death: “When a person dies, all institutions come to an end.”
For Zelenskyy, Putin’s strategy is comparable to that of Nazi Germany. “Russia has not started a new form of war. It’s doing what Hitler’s fascist regime did,” he said, referring to Russia’s bombing of civilian infrastructure to incite panic among the Ukrainian population.
Regarding Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that they were “a sign of weakness”, “mental disorder” and “medical problems”, noting that “only the sick, absolutely sick, take such a step could”. .
The Ukrainian leader also referred to the more than two million Ukrainians, including many children, who have been deported to Russia since the war began.
“We have impressive numbers. We’re talking about 50,000 to 200,000 children whose details we know: names, dates of birth and so on,” he said, adding that “many are now hostages”.